Support our award-winning journalism. The Premium package (digital only) is R30 for the first month and thereafter you pay R129 p/m now ad-free for all subscribers.
It is alarming to see the chaos in municipalities up and down the country. Is it too much to hope that the ANC will be responsible in opposition, regroup, run whatever municipalities it is running better and come back renewed to move SA forward?
South Africans need to see the big picture regarding budgets. Johannesburg has an R80bn budget for 5-million people. Nairobi, Kenya, has a budget of R5bn for 5-million people. Mangaung (Bloemfontein) has a budget of R10bn for its 500,000 people, while Lagos, Nigeria, also has R10bn to spend on 15-million people.
Kenya has a national budget of R300bn for 50-million people and Nigeria, with 250-million people, has a national budget of R400bn, and most of its tax revenue is from oil. Very few people pay taxes.
SA has a R2.1-trillion budget for 60-million people. I fear we are living in a postapartheid bubble that will pop given the way politicians are running our cities and country.
If SA is reduced to a Nigeria, future SA governments (the EFF?) will have to try to pay government workers and social grants, as well as provide services with a budget of about R100bn.
SA’s politicians and voters should think hard about this, because if the trajectory of deindustrialisation continues, we will end up like the rest of Africa and 90% of salaries, grants and services will be wiped out.
How will we survive?
Thomas Masuka Cape Town
JOIN THE DISCUSSION: Send us an email with your comments to letters@businesslive.co.za. Letters of more than 300 words will be edited for length. Anonymous correspondence will not be published. Writers should include a daytime telephone number.
Support our award-winning journalism. The Premium package (digital only) is R30 for the first month and thereafter you pay R129 p/m now ad-free for all subscribers.
LETTER: Postapartheid bubble
It is alarming to see the chaos in municipalities up and down the country. Is it too much to hope that the ANC will be responsible in opposition, regroup, run whatever municipalities it is running better and come back renewed to move SA forward?
South Africans need to see the big picture regarding budgets. Johannesburg has an R80bn budget for 5-million people. Nairobi, Kenya, has a budget of R5bn for 5-million people. Mangaung (Bloemfontein) has a budget of R10bn for its 500,000 people, while Lagos, Nigeria, also has R10bn to spend on 15-million people.
Kenya has a national budget of R300bn for 50-million people and Nigeria, with 250-million people, has a national budget of R400bn, and most of its tax revenue is from oil. Very few people pay taxes.
SA has a R2.1-trillion budget for 60-million people. I fear we are living in a postapartheid bubble that will pop given the way politicians are running our cities and country.
If SA is reduced to a Nigeria, future SA governments (the EFF?) will have to try to pay government workers and social grants, as well as provide services with a budget of about R100bn.
SA’s politicians and voters should think hard about this, because if the trajectory of deindustrialisation continues, we will end up like the rest of Africa and 90% of salaries, grants and services will be wiped out.
How will we survive?
Thomas Masuka
Cape Town
JOIN THE DISCUSSION: Send us an email with your comments to letters@businesslive.co.za. Letters of more than 300 words will be edited for length. Anonymous correspondence will not be published. Writers should include a daytime telephone number.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.
Most Read
Related Articles
Has SA run out of time on the doomsday clock?
NICHOLAS WOODE-SMITH: Procurement reform — if not privatise, then democratise
IMRAAN BUCCUS: The union movement is losing relevance in SA
Published by Arena Holdings and distributed with the Financial Mail on the last Thursday of every month except December and January.